Creating Corporate Content for the Web

I recently pitched some concepts to a corporate client who wanted to create a series of web videos that featured their products. To help them understand the difference between the demands of the web versus what a television audience might expect I created this "framework" to help them along. I'll be expanding on the points in this outline in future posts.

Doing web video is not like doing commercials. The reason is that (pre TiVo, anyway) a television audience is a relatively captive audience, whereas a web audience will quickly move on to something else if they are bored or feel manipulated by whatever content they’re watching.

With that in mind here are some rules:

1) Don’t try to sell anything in the video. It’s okay to feature the products in use and they can be important components of the narrative, but don’t sell. That’s what the web site is for. The video gets them to come, and once they are there they’re more likely to browse and explore.

The video helps the consumer to form an understanding of and build a relationship with the brand. It generates an aura of personality for the brand that tech specs cannot.

2) Keep the videos short. People don’t have time to watch a ten minute video. Rather than doing one long video it’s much better to do many short ones. If you end each video with a cliff-hanger it keeps the audience interested and coming back for more.

3) Keep the videos interesting. The only people who are fascinated by tech specs are engineers. Unfortunately engineers think everyone is fascinated by these details. It’s especially problematic when the company making the product is run by engineers. To see why this is wrong look at Apple’s success with the iPod. Does it play music? Yes. Does it have adequate storage? Yes. Is it simple to use? Yes. Is it cool? Yes. End of story.

If it were all about features and specs then the iPod would be one of the least successful mp3 players. An important fact to keep in mind.

4) Keep the videos coming. You can’t just do two or three. Twenty or thirty is more realistic. Give people a reason to come back to your site again and again.

5) Keep the site dynamic. If consumers are coming back to the site on a regular basis to see the new video, make sure the site changes each time they come so they’ll be inspired to look at the site again to see what they’ve missed.

6) Make sure the consumer can find you. The videos should always have a home URL so that if consumers find them on YouTube or somewhere else (as they surely will, and this is to be encouraged) they can find their way back to your site to see more.